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Student seminar: Ecological baseline shapes local pastoralists' perception of ecosystem restoration in socio–ecological systems, Huxuan Dai, 2024-05-23
17 May 2024, 2:16 PM
Speaker: Huxuan Dai (online)
Date: 2024-05-23
Time: 13:00-13:30
Room: ES354
Online link:
https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/v169BGHYrPM6
Meeting ID: 668-4466-7997
Title: Ecological baseline shapes local pastoralists' perception of ecosystem restoration in socio–ecological systems
Abstract:
Community engagement underpins the success of ecosystem restoration. As the first step, however, local people’s adaptation depends on the way they perceive the trajectories of ecosystem degradation and recovery. We conducted a photo-based survey to investigate pastoralists' perceptions of grassland degradation and restoration of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. The study reveals that local perceptions are influenced by the features of the local ecological system: the perceived restoration urgency is higher when the landscape heterogeneity is high, and lower when the ecosystem is more unstable. Besides, where ecosystem instability is high, the community hold an extremely optimistic expectation towards the outcome of the restoration. We also found a significant tendency of local pastoralists to postpone the restoration regardless of the current status of the grassland degradation. Policy makers and restoration managers should be aware that the local communities may have different perceptions towards the urgency to act and the outcome of the restoration. To create incentives for community engagement, it is important to demonstrate that degradation is a nonlinear process. To calibrate local expectations, it is advisable to carry out onsite restoration experiments at the local scale.